Show Recap

Recap: Youthful Rap Vet Scarface gives Legendary SF Performance

Words: Kevin Lee Photos: Michael Santiago / March 17, 2014

Scarface took the stage last Saturday at Mezzanine in San Francisco looking more like a youthful hypeman than a 43-year old hip-hop vet. A legend in Houston, with trademark rough baritone and a preacher’s cadence, Scarface came in looking svelte. The Geto Boys member and Facemob frontman oozed with an energy you’d expect out of someone in their 20’s, grandly motioning with every bar he spit. And at the same time, despite his new look, signs of the old Face came through with his brooding growls and southern inflections, and whenever he flashed his smile. After he went through his catalog of vintage and landed on his nearly-forgotten but still-timeless “Minute To Pray and a Second To Die” from his original solo debut (which was based on an old Marvin Gaye sample,) he tried some crooning of his own, taking on Gaye’s falsetto from “Inner City Blues.” Left wanting more, we can only hope his new-found fitness translates into an ever-longer performance career.